Humanities

Articles from Vol. 30, No. 6, November/December

A Roundup ot Activities Sponsored by the State Humanities CouncilsALABAMA"Digging Out of the Great Depression: Federal Programs at Work in the Birmingham Area," an exhibition created by the Birmingham Historical Society, is on display at the city's public...

THE FIRST CIRCUS IN AMERICA WAS HELD IN 1793 IN PHILADELPHIA and attended by George Washington. But it wasn't until the nineteenth century, with the arrival of the railroad and the marketing prowess of impresario R T Barnum, that circuses became the...

Endowment-Supported Events"Lincoln and New York," tracing the president's relationship with the Empire State, continues at the NewYork Historical Society before drculating nationwide. The exhibit shows the central role New York played in Lincoln's career,...

TANNED RETIREES, DEBAUCHED SPRING-BREAKERS, and oversized talking mice were probably the farthest things from Ponce de Leon's mind when on April 2, 1513, he first caught sight of the land mass he would dub "La Florida." But as the Spanish explorer gazed...

SIMPLE THINGSOregon Humanities magazine's summer '09 issue provokes much thought on the matter of things, possessions, or, as the editors call it, "stuff." The issue is stuffed with stuff on stuff, including a delightful essay "in praise of materials...

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, WAS THE FIRST MOTION PICTURE CAPITAL of the United States, producing approximately three hundred films between 1909 and 1926. "Looking at it today, it's hard to believe this former cattìe crossing in north Florida was once a destination...

IN 1689, KANGKI, THE EMPEROR of China, embarked on a tour to inspect his southern provinces, undertaking a two-thousand-rnile journey from Beijing to the dries arid towns of the Vangzi Delta and back Included in the emperor's retinue were his mother,...

Settle into your chair and be prepared to be dazzled and puzzled by the towering talent that was Orson Welles. For every film he completed - including gems like Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons - Welles left another project languishing. In...

ASK PETER GILBERT ABOUT THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE in offering humanities programs in Vermont and he immediately brings up the state's famously wintry weather."The weather is a challenge," he says, laughing. "We sometimes have to cancel programs because of...

THE GREATEST AMERICANLITERARY SENSATION OF THE POST-CIVIL WAR decade had its origins in a conversation between Thomas an editor at the publishing house of Roberts Brothers, and Bronson Alcott, the father of a thirty-five-year-old writer whom his wife...

ON FEBRUARY 12. 1958. MARTIN LUTHER KINGJR. ADDRESSED a packed house at the Greater Bethel AME Church in Miami. A film of the event, preserved at Miami Dade College's Lynn and Louis Wolfson Il Florida Moving Image Archives, shows a youthful King standing...

Jim Thompson's work was formed in the trenches of New Deal populism.Legendary crime writer Jim Thompson was many things: hobo, bellhop, roughneck, boozer, fadory worker, Marine, devoted father and husband, and, for a brief time, a registered Communist....

MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER THE PILGRIMS landed at Plymouth Rock. New Hampshire native Sarah Josepha Hale lobbied governors, congressmen, and presidents to have Thanksgiving declared a national holiday. In 1 837, Hale wrote that a national day...

At the time, all three were employed at the University of Virginia; they were accomplished colleagues who collectively had penned enough books to fill a small library and garnered enough honors - academic and literary - to wallpaper any remaining walls...

Congressman Jim Leach comes to NEHAfter thirty years of service in Congress, James A. Leach has been appointed by President Obama to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. In this interview he takes us from his highschool wrestling days through...

intrigueSecrets whispered in shadowy corners. Machinations that breed mischief and mistrust. A note requesting a midnight rendezvous. Your curiosity is piqued. But is he friend or foe? Is she telling truth or lies? Nothing is certain when intrigue is...